


For The Better

by celestialswrites



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Saddness, ellie and joel moment, takes place right after sam and henry’s death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 09:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18341246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialswrites/pseuds/celestialswrites
Summary: What happens right after Sam and Henry die? Ellie and Joel are left with dealing with their shocking deaths.





	For The Better

The wind creaked against the window. The sun was split by the cracks, too sunny for Ellie’s liking. It was too much of an awful morning for the sun to be so beautiful. 

She couldn’t look. Her eyes stayed glued to the wooden planks of the flooring, following the cracks that rippled down like she was following a maze. Just out of her view, Joel was cleaning up the mess.

The mess that ultimately, when it came down to it, was Ellie’s fault.

If they didn’t meet Sam and Henry they’d probably be alive and safe. But Ellie was like a walking omen, making people die left and right. First it was Tess, and now it was them. Why’d it have to be them? They almost made it to the end of their journey. 

“Ellie?”

Ellie pulled herself from her thoughts, snapping her head up to him. The bodies were gone, but the blood still reeked. The bedroom probably smelled of infected since Sam spent the night in there. 

The memory stuck, even though Joel did his best to wipe it away. 

He looked down at her with different eyes than Tess. Tess, Ellie knew, hurt him more than it did her. Now it was the other way around, and Joel had more trust in her than when Tess died. 

Ellie knew. He cared that she was feeling sad. 

“What?” She said after a long moment. She had expected him to call her name again but maybe he was just waiting for her reaction. Waiting to see if she’d burst into tears or start yelling or say nothing at all. 

Joel wasn’t one for sentimentals, but the next thing he said surprised her. “I’m sorry.”

That was the first time he’d ever apologized to her...and for something he wasn’t even responsible for. 

“It’s fine,” Ellie croaked out, clearing her throat and wiping away at the tears that brimmed her eyes. They stung. It was the kind of sting that hurt because you were the dam that was trying to hold back the waterfall of tears. 

Joel didn’t want to talk about what he saw. Realizing Sam was dead then witnessing a suicide would be hard on anybody. Ellie was rightfully afraid of what to say next, not knowing how he’d react. He had to clear away the bodies, not her.

He cleared his throat too. “Get your things. We’re movin’ on.”

He paced back and forth, but Ellie didn’t seem to have the strength yet. He must have noticed, because of what he said next. 

“I’ll wait outside.”

The entire time his eyes wavered from her gaze, but she couldn’t blame him. If he looked her way she’d probably do the same. 

As the door closed shut, leaving Ellie to herself, knowing that she was the only one alone in the room made the dam come crashing down. The tears rolled down her cheeks. She wanted to  
cry. She needed a good cry. 

Making herself look at the damage, even without the bodies, made it easier to cry. Her hand flew on her mouth, muffling the cries so Joel couldn’t hear. 

Once it was all out of her system, she stumbled towards the bedroom, putting all her things away. She purposefully ignored the toy robot sitting on the windowsill. She didn’t even want to look at it. 

Finding herself in the hallway, she hiked her backpack higher on her shoulders, following behind Joel’s footsteps. 

Her feet glued to the ground for a moment. Joel heard her stop, peering over his shoulder. 

He didn’t even need to ask her what she wanted to say, because he just waited. “What do we do now?”

He looked back down the hallway. Was he hiding his own grief?

“We can’t just act like it never happened,” she continued. There she goes again, feeling the ball in her throat and the sting in her eyes. 

Joel was quiet, but the kind of quiet where you knew they were thinking of something to say. 

His heavy body fell against the wall, leaning while in thought. “You keep on going.”

That wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear. He must have know, since he continued. 

“What just happened was—was nothing you should have witnessed. But you did. Just...try to remember Sam before...before that.”

Ellie nodded, letting him continue down the hall. Her head tilted back up for a moment. “You didn’t need to witness it either.”

He hummed in question. 

“Just ‘cause you’re an adult, and I’m a kid, doesn’t mean...what I mean to say is...I’m sorry too.”

His footsteps ceased for a second. He continued not too long after, so quick she could’ve missed it. But he heard what she said. He really heard. 

He didn’t say anything for a few hours into their journey. But he didn’t need to. Ellie understood that Joel grieved differently than her, and that was okay. But something had changed since that day, and despite the deaths she hoped it was for the better.


End file.
